In which the vampire is clearly Lawful Good and the werewolf shows remarkable judgement.

...And then Muse got a sinus-headache and decided to take a little nap. Aaaanyway. Regarding the recent poll, a few respondents were in the right general neighbourhood; Trevor, in fact, would find much to reflect upon in this essay regarding a theoretical time-traveller from 1910, though as he himself has taken the slow path here he's had the leisure to adjust with the changing times. (He actually sort of feels like now has finally caught up to him, really, because some of the ideas about equality from his Quaker upbringing are no longer seen as shocking and weird... He's still, however, quite hell-bent on not letting me watch Downton Abbey in peace.)

***

Jason's apparently decided to make breakfast to thank Jill for taking us in during the storm. "'Your temperament's wrong for the priesthood' --" He knows of an amazing number of really disturbing showtunes, I say as Jill stirs.

I dodged a bullet, huh. She rubs her nose ruefully. Never anything like... Oklahoma, or South Pacific?

In the kitchen Jason launches into a robust rendition of Rick Astley's greatest hit. I should be so lucky, I say, and raise my voice: "Oi!"

"Ten thousand years from now you're going to be explaining why that's funny to the hyperevolved ant-people," he shouts back.

Jill's eyebrows have shot up. "I'll be sure to see they get his name wrong," I tell her, throwing back the duvet, and go to confront my flatmate's sense of humour.

He's found his pants, at least. All in all he looks much fresher after last night than he really has any right to. If one doesn't consider the bit where hasn't shaved yet this morning looks quite a lot as if he's been actively trying to grow out a beard for some while, and his dreads have the slack, stunned look of that sudden explosion at the roots that will see him making his usual pilgrimage home this afternoon to get Michael to give him a hand touching them up. I've long since given up trying to make sense of what stays, what goes, and what grows. "We did bring more clothes than that?" I say.

"Everything in the bag was wet," he replies mildly. (I realise that a rumble I've been hearing is Jill's wash running.) "At least we didn't bring my phone."

It's going to be interesting tearing him away from that cooker. (And the pantry. Jason keeps extra stores that can tolerate the indifferent conditions out on our back porch, which is enclosed but unheated and needs careful packaging to discourage rodents.) Jill pads into the kitchen, yawning. "Showtunes," she says.

"I'm thirty-seven percent Swedish by volume, consider the alternative," Jason says ominously, and then makes a gesture that almost does more to draw attention to his state of disarray; "-- Um, sorry about the, um... I thought the dryer'd be done before you..."

It's heartening that he's noticed he's not exactly properly dressed to be cooking breakfast in someone else's kitchen. Jill waves him off sleepily, far more engaged with the pot he's taking a wooden spoon to. "You, are making oatmeal?"

Somehow in this unfamiliar flat Jason has managed to set the table with a proper full service for three. He sits us down to an eclectic spread and ducks round into the utility-cupboard to put the rest of his clothes on. Jill pokes a hesitant spoon into her porridge. "So, do you guys always go for his runs this far from home base, or were you actually trying for the meet-cute you pulled off last night?"

"Well, all the bloody police-cameras up our end, seems good to change it up a bit." Even with my mobile set to vibrate a caution should we stray too near their lines of sight (of questionable legality, that trick of Max's, but the least of our worries really) we daren't risk the notion there's an animal Jason's size roaming the streets without any apparent chaperone becoming a subject of official gossip. Or public.

"Tell her how we almost got picked up by the cops last night," Jason calls from the utility-closet, re-emerging a moment later still pulling his shirt over his head.

Jill looks... perhaps not shocked, but as if this is one of a number of possibilities that she prefers by long standing not to entertain. "I don't know I'd say it was that close," I demur.

Jason gives me a look as he plops into the third chair. "They were still out of line, man. I mean, labradoodle? What the hell?"

He's clearly taken something more away from the incident than I had. Fair enough, I suppose, when my own instinct will forever be that I betray myself whenever I open my mouth to speak. Ruddy Taffy coward. Jill's trying to nudge the subject onto Jason's creativity in raiding her larder. He still looks out of sorts, but brightens, just a bit, when she thinks to enquire after the curious-for-him absence of meat:

Hey, even before the formal education I knew the one about cooking bacon in your underwear.

This is only the next morning from installment-before-last -- Jason apparently read that encounter as "cops hassling us for No Good Reason" and couldn't help but end up having to talk himself down from suspecting their motivation, even if he knows it couldn't have been what it sort of felt like...